Friday, October 1, 2010

Friday, October 1, 2010

Update from John: For those of you crying "Photoshop:"This is clearly cut in the stone; look carefully at the S in both words. We also have Elissa as our eyewitness, who took this pic with her own camera while standing in the graveyard.

Besides, after the amount of Wreckage we've documented, does this really surprise you that much? ;)

I was going to say something about how long wreckage has been going on until it occurred to me that the marker is fairly new. Thus, I can continue to cherish the thought that common sense hasn't always been an oxymoron, along with the secret doctrine that 2+2=4.

Craig says it looks like a new stone, but having spent way too much time in cemeteries, I say is is original to 1875. The style and lettering is of that period. If they bought a new stone, I'm sure it would not have the time consuming reverse lettering. Which is why the error is so ... so ... very wrong.

The original directions to the headstone maker were to write the word "soldier" in script, as in, make the word "soldier" look pretty. Instead, they wrote "soldier in script." The words 'in script' were the directions...

Ah Private Stark, I remember him well, his bravery in the face of adverse calligraphy was legendary - he fought off many an Itallic whilst crying out 'The pen is mightier than the sword!' which is probably what killed him........

Ok, I just got home from a 12 hour shift and honestly had to look at this three times before I got it. That may be even more sad than the stone itself..... Maybe they can cover it with curling ribbon??

This is so much worse than a cake wreck. At least a cake (and its wreckage) can disappear in an afternoon. This stupidity has been around for 135 years so far, and is looking like it will last another couple of hundred years. It is still hilarious, though! :)

Dear Photoshop Epcotters: it is insulting to Jen and John when you accuse them of not doing their job well. A big part of their job is screening fakes. They work hard to bring us funny but sad true stories of incompetence. No need to try to spoil it. Of course, don't believe everything you see on the internet. but this isn't the forum for crying "fake". Alex

I hate to be a killjoy, but my Dad owned several "monument' firms and I sort of grew up in the business. Cemetery markers go through so many appovals before they are set, that someone would have spotted this before it was engraved. Also, the line is question is not centered properly and that just wouldn't happen. So Elissa is really just messing with you.

I must add that when I was young, my father did business with a company called Dynamic Monument Setters in Queens, NY. On the side of their crane, in beautiful script, was their motto: "Dynamic Erections"

I doubt this is a real cakewreck-style mistake. Could be a real marker documenting a colloquialism, or it could be a photoshop, but I doubt it's a mistake.

The wife of author James Fennimore Cooper is buried under a large slab bearing a poem, on the last line of which appears the word "grteful", with a "^a" squeezed in. I'm sure the marker probably took days to carve, so I can understand the carver's desire not to redo the whole thing. Still, I found it curious that the carver did a crude correction which drew attention to the mistake, rather than simply leaving the word as "grteful".

My very favorite tombstone (yes, I collect them) is one from about 1812 commemorating the resting place of Miss Lucinda Laird, daughter of Sam'l Laird. Sadly, the engraver forgot the I in Laird, rendering it as "Miss Lucinda Lard." And later went in and carefully inserted a tiny-wee caret pointing to a tiny-wee I in between the A and the R. That's a hell of a way to spend eternity.

I'm having to agree with the posters who have pointed out that "in script" is probably a colloquialism or short for "conscripted". Though, if viewed as a tomb wreck, it is also quite funny. Not buying the photoshop theory.Erin G. :)

It took me a LONG time to get it, and I'm still not sure...after all, the Civil War was, I believe, the first time that soldiers were drafted (or "conscripted," thus my ambivalence about the word "script." Maybe he was drafted?).

@SuBee said:"Cemetery markers go through so many appovals before they are set, that someone would have spotted this before it was engraved."

This is apparently not true of all monument companies. Two examples: My cousin's crypt marker had his last name misspelled "Railla" instead of "Failla"; and my brother-in-law's marker misspelled his last name "Belthis" instead of "Balthis". So whoever is "approving" them, it certainly isn't any of the family.

"I do think that it refers to the soldier's having been conscripted, and not to the desired style of the writing. Although it does read funny to a modern eye."

Exactly. I wouldn't have known any of this so yeah, it looked (sadly) funny to me when I first saw it.

But I checked the comments to see how many people would call 'Photoshop!' anyway. Because no offense to anyone who would rather call Photoshop on everything than risk being duped but it seems that is the "trendy" thing to do over the past couple years. Not sure how to organize it but I'm SURE there's some fun to be had with taking REAL unusual pictures and asking people to prove how they were Photoshopped :)

Oh boy it took me a few minutes of looking and re-reading to figure out what was wrong. I tried to think of what a script was....D'oh. LOLAt least it should provide a little levity in an otherwise 'grave' situation.(ummm, no disrespect intended, my sincere condolences to the family of the deceased)

Could also be that the deceased (and their family) had a sense of humour.A friend of our family died 2 years ago after a very long battle with cancer. As such, Tony planned his own funeral. He wanted it to be memorable and so had NO "dreary" songs at all. They were all funny, silly songs that reminded us of him. For example, the last song at the service was Monty Python's "Always look on the bright side of life". LOLI also remember an interview with Scottish comedian Billy Connolly a few years back when he said what he wanted on his tombstone. He said he couldn't decide between "See! Told you I was sick!" or "Good heavens! Is that the time already?"

This one is pretty funny and I also googled the phrase and nothing came up in the historical records.

Heck, even in our own family, when my father-in-law's stone, after we had spent hours designing it, was carved and set with a HUGE flaw right in the middle of his name.

My husband tells stories of how he would be hired to fix "typos" in stones. It consists of filling in the bad word with a stone/glue paste and recarving it. A ton of this work was done to solve the "Y2K" problem when husband/wife stones were carved with the death date of the still-living spouse being pre-carved "19__" and that person having the utter gall of living past year 2000.

PS: I ran this past my expert stonecarver husband and he laughed his head off. He's carved dozens of stones for veterans and repaired/replaced many more for old graves and he's never seen the phrase "in script." He thinks it is a legit tomb wreck done by an illiterate carver who was just reproducing the marks on the paper.

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